Coos Watershed Association (CoosWA) and the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve (SSNERR) are interested in forming a community stakeholder group as the foundation of the Partnership for Coastal Watersheds project. CoosWA and SSNERR have engaged Oregon Consensus to conduct a neutral assessment of issues related to the convening of...
Executive Summary
This report analyzes how land use regulations – and government programs
generally – have affected the value of private real property in Oregon. Its objective is to
inform discussion of the issues surrounding the current debate over Measure 37.
Measure 37 was passed in 2004 in response to...
This essay provides a snapshot of sustainability and acceptability of wave energy and eight other electricity-generating energy sources in Oregon. Since “sustainability” is an important point of view in decision-making, the paper is centered around the concept. Although there is no consensus on the definition of sustainability in the academic...
This report describes the accomplishments in the second and final year of a project to develop a
set of measures to monitor the socio-economic effects on the local community of the stream
restoration efforts on the upper Middle Fork John Day River. A panel of Grant County residents
helped develop...
Climate change policies present multiple quandaries to the field of public policy and science studies. Despite the prevalent scientific consensus, approaches demonstrate great heterogeneity. With one side advocating for the facticity of climate change and a pro-active stance, while the other argues about negative economic trade-offs, viewpoints diverge. Between controversy...
This report summarizes the outcomes of a March 22-25, 2010, workshop in Seattle, Washington, on the environmental effects of tidal energy development. The workshop focused on building capabilities to evaluate the environmental effects of tidal energy from turbines placed in the water column throughout the United States. However, it did...
There is a growing movement in the U.S., and throughout the world, involving top down government bureaucracies or government agencies within the natural resources field, to develop new and innovative processes and structures for integrating societal viewpoints into agency decision-making. This study examines Urban Matters, a community of practice within...
The U.S. Forest Service has been forced to adapt to numerous changes over the last three decades. These include a dramatic reduction in workforce, a declining budget, and controversial lawsuits. Moreover, recent agency wide studies suggest that within the Forest Service a new resource management paradigm has emerged that differs...
In 2008, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind and Water Power Program issued a funding opportunity announcement to establish university-‐led National Marine Renewable Energy Centers. Oregon State University and the University of Washington combined their capabilities in wave and tidal energy to establish the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy...
Requirements are growing for peer review of the science used for governmental management decisions. This is particularly true for fisheries science, where management decisions are often controversial. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service instituted the Center for Independent Experts (CIE) in 1998 as a national peer-review...
This project examined the information needs of those interested in the planning for marine renewable energy in Oregon. The objective was to recommend to Oregon State University’s Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC) an approach to facilitating sharing of relevant information concerning marine renewable energy in Oregon and Washington....
In this report we present results of a sound propagation modeling study off the coast of Newport, OR. Preliminary acoustic experimental data was also collected by an underwater glider equipped with a hydrophone to measure sound levels in a short transect perpendicular to the coast and away from a sound...
Increasingly diverse interests in commercial and recreational use of marine resources are creating new challenges for coastal ocean management. One concern of increased offshore use and development off the Oregon coast is the potential impact on marine bird populations. We summarized the primary surveys of seabird breeding colonies and at-sea...
The goal of the graduate essay was to provide the reader with a historical overview of the United States government funded preschool program Head Start and examine policy considerations for long term effectiveness on academic achievements of participants. Focusing on research about Head Start effectiveness, careful consideration was given to...
With energy prices rising and increasing concern about the influence of fossil fuels on climate change, wave energy systems are on the verge of commercial implementation. These first generation wave energy converters utilize either pneumatics or hydraulics to convert the mechanical energy of waves into electricity. For the last several...
Fisheries nationwide are facing major challenges that require collection of real time (RT) and near real time (NRT) information. High-resolution RT and NRT data are critical for addressing a variety of fishery needs including quota accounting, observer coverage, bycatch management, electronic logbook and fish ticket requirements, research and monitoring, spatial...
In 2007, the Oregon Wave Energy Trust (OWET) put out a request for proposals to begin to discover answers to many of the environmental and human dimensions questions. A multidisciplinary group of social scientists – Flaxen Conway, Brent Steel, Michael Harte, and Bryan Tilt, Oregon State University – responded to...
Congress created the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) in 2009 with the passage of the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 Title IV). The purpose of the CFLRP legislation is to implement forest restoration work on national forest lands through a competitive grant program....
Post World War II victory culture and its fallout-the consensus ideology-led to the creation of a middle class willing to conform to a prescribed set of ideals, safely removed from all danger, and enjoying the material benefits of a growing middle-class income bracket. Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner, two seemingly...
The purpose of this study was three fold: 1) to determine if false consensus
effects would be found for estimates of sexual behaviors, 2) to determine the directional
accuracy of consensus estimates for subscribers and nonsubscribers and 3) to determine if
the degree of accuracy of those estimates was influenced...